Inside the city’s new art gallery, Te Puna o Waiwhetu, the lights are burning late into the evenings as staff and contractors prepare for opening weekend — May 10 and 11.

And as that work continues, Gallery Director Tony Preston is also preparing a last grand “thank you” to everyone who has helped made the new gallery a reality.

Mr Preston says next month’s opening will be a tribute to all elements of the community — from the people throughout the region who have donated money or given their time to organise fund-raising efforts, to the businesses which have donated staff time or expertise or equipment, to the Community Trust and Government for their multimillion dollar support and to the City Council which underpins it all with $35.5 million.

“I feel like I’ve been rattling that fund-raising tamborine for a very long time, but the fact is the community’s got behind this project to an extraordinary degree,” Mr Preston says. “In all, it’s about $15.26m that we’ve raised. No community project has been asked to raise that much, either in dollar terms or as a percentage of a total.”

The gallery team also have their director’s admiration and thanks for their work in preparing for the opening.

“I’m sure people coming in will be amazed,” he says. “The opening’s going to be a big cultural event for New Zealand, but for the staff it’s also a question of making the gallery work from the opening on.

“They’ve got a tremendous programme worked out and we’ve got our late night opening on Wednesdays, when we stay open until 9pm,” he says. “We’ve got a year to show that it can be successful and we’ll bend all our efforts to make sure there’s a fistful of reasons for people to visit us on that evening.”